


Follow Close, and Follow Closer

by P_stellaviatori



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-04 23:05:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14030817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/P_stellaviatori/pseuds/P_stellaviatori
Summary: Michael won’t argue that she isn’t disillusioned with all that’s happened. The Klingons with their war, and Starfleet with their virtue. Lorca with his treachery, and Ash with his contradictions.The Emperor with her backwards world.What if Michael had accepted Philippa's offer in that dark shrine on Qo'noS? An AU set after the season 1 finale. Rated for future chapters.





	Follow Close, and Follow Closer

—

The war is over.

There’s a finality in that thought like a conclusion to a well-fought narrative, but Michael knows better than to think a war is anything like a book, over when the pages run out and the cover’s flipped shut. Michael knows better that to think any of this has truly ended.

Starfleet would tout her as a hero, as one brave enough to stand up to and convince a desperate admiralty of less drastic measures, despite her status as a convicted mutineer, and praise her for conceiving a better, less bloody approach in stopping the Klingons. Perhaps they’ll even pardon her crimes, commute her sentence, and return her to rank and commission.

In truth, Michael knows the plan she’d given Starfleet is faulty, if not temporary in its perception of creating peace.

The detonator of a bomb poised at the fiery core of Qo’noS’ volcanic ring system and placed into the hands of a woman unreasoningly loyal to a warmongering, xenophobic, isolationistic extremist whose ambitions of uniting the Klingon houses were wrought with flaws and misconceptions the moment they formed in his mind, would work out well enough, Michael muses, until she’s assassinated or the bomb removed within a matter of days if not hours.

For glory, and not _Kahless,_ the Klingons would strike again, the houses bitterly disparate and vying for power as they encroach into Federation territory like a malignancy without mercy, and one would assume Starfleet would be just as unprepared as it was before.

Though Michael still maintains her ideologies close to her heart and ready on the tip of her tongue, there was one thing Lorca was right about, as she grimaces at the thought of him, and that was that context is indeed for kings. Though perhaps not strictly for kings, but those clever enough, and determined, to survive.

And survival is key to the preservation of morality, of principle, for what good are they when all are dead?

For the sake of this preservation, whether of the self or of the institution, Michael had once mutinied _against_ her principles, and failed. And for the sake of morality and what she’d thought was right at the time, she’d mutinied again, but this time _for_ her principles, and succeeded.

But that second time felt hollow, overly pious as if to speak what lofty minds would want to hear, a rallying call toward an idealism without caveat. An easy stand to take when one neglects the long-term repercussions.

But Starfleet is neither foolish nor weak, Michael thinks. They can be well-informed and noble-minded, yet forceful and relentless in their pursuits, like two sides of a heavily worn coin. The weaponry and arsenal, ready and waiting, on each of their vessels prove their willingness to fight. It’s defensive, for protection, as they would claim, only to be used when no other options are available, or viable. But advance courses in battle strategics, evasive maneuvers and covert tactics are not taught at the Academy without reason.

Starfleet, for all the good it does, is a military force veiled in exploration and diplomacy, with an open and offered hand of friendship, while the other wields hidden a fist.

This is the Starfleet that would sentence her to life imprisonment for failing to prevent a war with one mutiny, but likely commend her with full honors for stopping a war with another. It’s almost laughable if Michael were not practically seething at the thought.

This is hypocrisy, Michael realizes, after years of adoration and upholding of their ideals. Was she blind, perhaps naive? No, it isn’t that.

As a xenoanthropologist, she sees that the differences in cultures warrant different approaches, but for Starfleet, it remains a persistent offering of dialogue, even to those cultures who can’t or chose not to speak. It’s for this meddling hospitality, the overextended smile some see as suspect, maybe even deceitful, that the Klingons, and many others, despise the Federation.

As a scientist, she sees what conflict does, how battle and death and the fear of death motivates and stimulates scientific and technological advancement. How the discovery of something astonishing, as incredible as the mycelial network, the intergalactic web that spans all time and space, and realities, is turned on its head and made an instrument of war.

And as once an officer of this peaceful Starfleet armada, patrolling the galaxy with charismatic captains, these paragons of virtue, to welcome new species and new civilizations into the Federation, Michael admits it’s all quite a convincing and pleasing façade.

To those favorable enough to be offered to join, they say it offers security, support, stabilization, and technological advancement. But it slowly tears away at identity, individuality, and independence. It creates homogeneity, dependency, and an ever growing force, to all others, be reckoned with.

 _We’re explorers, not soldiers._ Any practical mind would know the two are not mutually exclusive. The inherent threat of exploring the unknown is an inescapable reality. History would prove it to be so. On Earth—the Amazon, the Congo Basin, the Atlantic Ocean, the list goes infinitely on. There is danger everywhere, when one least expects it, or when one expects it all too well. Mapping land or mapping stars, it makes no difference. The illimitable threat of contact, biotic or abiotic or something in between or not quite either, and the encounter of _others._

Michael sees this all now, how her life in the last eighteen months, with its sharp twists and turns at every surprising corner, has come to alter, perhaps for worse, her perspective of what was once her life’s ambition.

If on the eve of the war, giving her life would have prevented all of this, she would would have done so in a heartbeat, without so much as a second thought. But Michael knows now that nothing she could have done would have stopped this war from coming. It was the one flawless facet of T’Kuvma’s plan.

She would have died for Starfleet, for the Federation. She would have died for her ship, her captain and her crew. She would die once, or die a thousand times, to save them all. That, she gathers, hasn’t changed. She would die for them still.

But the blind allegiance she once gave, she won’t give anymore. Michael is not and has never been naive. And neither is Starfleet.

They are cunning and manipulative, and they know their image as a peaceful organization is crucial to their survival, to attract young, idealistic cadets and to keep hold of their revered, idolized captains.

But in war, in times of desperation, she’s seen how their illusion becomes shaken. They openly tolerated Lorca’s tactics, her conscription and likely thousands of others into service, the exploitation of an innocent creature, the Emperor’s devastating plan of planetary slaughter. Those black badges she saw on her first day on the _Discovery_.

Michael doesn’t doubt that under the surface, the Federation uses counterintelligence and secret ops, cloaked in black and obscured in shadow. What happens behind the curtains to sustain the Federation’s hold on their part of the galaxy, and to secure and to expand, Michael can only dare to speculate. What was done behind the scenes of this senseless war, Michael’s not sure she even wants to know.

She grits her teeth at the realization that she’s helped maintain the Federation’s peaceable image by offering an impermanent solution to their losing war, and simply biding them time.

But perhaps in the eyes of the Klingons, they’ll finally see the Federation as worthy opponents to have bested them with a sly checkmate in this sloppy game of chess. Or they’ll continue to laugh and mock, after seeing the Federation fold off their high horse, and crawl in the dirt as they resort to blatant subterfuge and tricks.

It’s difficult, Michael accepts, to both play by the books and win. Any solution she can offer, or even imagine in her mind, will be flawed, never perfectly ethical, never perfectly efficient. There is a pragmatic need for balance, but that balance, defined by some arbitrary measure, is no doubt hard to come by and will always leave some more pleased than others, and with a more or less acceptable variance in death toll.

This is the reality of diplomacy, of compromise, of survival.

Though to Michael, it doesn’t matter now. She’s done her part after stopping the destruction of the enemy homeworld and of Earth, putting a cease to the hostilities, and ending the war, however tenuous this all is and will likely remain for decades to come. She’s done enough for Starfleet, and Starfleet’s done enough for her.

Time. This is what Michael needs now. Not clemency or reinstatement. Time, and distance.

Thoughts run ragged in her mind, questions without answers, and ideas without plans. She needs to process. A Vulcan cannot be indecisive, and so she’s made her mind.

“I’m not coming back,” her voice is worn, but resolved. “Don’t look for me,” is the last she says to Starfleet, her friends and comrades, before shutting off her communicator and shoving it into her pocket.

She won’t see them again, maybe for a long while, or maybe forever, and though she imagines the shock on their faces or perhaps disappointment or anger, she doesn’t regret her decision.

Michael won’t argue that she isn’t disillusioned with all that’s happened. The Klingons with their war, and Starfleet with their virtue. Lorca with his treachery, and Ash with his contradictions.

The Emperor with her backwards world.

Though perhaps not so backwards as it all would seem. And perhaps more relevant than Michael would care to admit.

Her thoughts shift, but are more congruent that she realizes, as she thinks of the face that haunts her no matter if her eyes are open or closed. It’s the thought of that woman that keeps Michael bewildered, clutching at the familiarity, but driven back by the differences. It’s the thought of that woman that compels Michael to question everything she’s known and everything she’s stood by.

 _Or you’ll come for me?_ The words ring in her head, low and inscrutable, like an invitation to something just beyond her grasp despite how far and how eagerly she reaches for it. Like a mirage in unforgiving desert, the lure of solace for parched lips, though the mind knows there’s nothing there but sand and grit.

It’s the thought of that woman that leaves Michael practically intoxicated, drunken with a reddened confusion, standing idly in the middle of a busy street on Qo’noS. And curious by nature, Michael is invariably drawn to investigate.

 

—

 

The air on Qo’noS leaves Michael breathing heavily, the denseness weighing down her lungs and making her sweat through her clothes, even as she feels the need to pull her jacket tighter across her back. She wanders the streets of the Orion Embassy with her head held up as confidently as can muster, ignoring the looks and whispers with a ready hand on the phaser at her waist.

She’d last seen Philippa leaving the underground shrine, but she can little guess where the woman is now when Michael looks to her tricorder and realizes that Philippa has found and removed the tracking device Michael had planted on her before the mission began.

She could turn on her communicator, but the _Discovery_ would then be instantly privy to her location, and modulating the frequency of the device would make it all the more difficult to pinpoint Philippa’s communicator and location, assuming she’d done the same.

To look for a woman who doesn’t want to be found, not to mention a woman as unpredictable as Philippa, could potentially be difficult, but Michael decides she has little choice and little time.

Michael needs her now, though a part of her wonders why exactly.

After hours on this planet’s surface, and Michael’s eyes are yet to fully adjust to the dim lighting and hazy green atmosphere. The Orion Embassy is littered corner to corner and alley to alley with black markets and seedy, huddled figures, threatening every one of her senses with suffocating stenches and deafening sounds, a far cry from the orderly, comforted life of a Starfleet officer.

In her years of space travel, Michael’s never experienced anything quite like this squalid, perilous underground with no easy means of retreat. If anything were to happen, she’d be left with her hands and her wits, with no communication, no backup, and no safe haven of a starship.

But she’s a quick study and learns to blend in, walking with a middling stride, and a rigid assurance and deep-seated scowl across her brow, drawing no more attention to herself than she can avoid.

It’s the middle of the night, but the embassy is still bustling, strobing neon signs attracting the eye and pounding loud music pulling the ear. Thinking of where Philippa could have gone off to, Michael heads down a back street, stalls lined with various minor commodities and curious foods, concealing the contraband and weaponry, illicit drugs and chemicals hidden away in locked and guarded chests. She’s intrigued by the lack of ordinance that governs these markets, but she can’t help but marvel at the goods.

When she asks, to her surprise, vendors lay out before her a testament to the side of advanced technology that sees little exposure in the classrooms of Starfleet Academy, implements and tools of slaughter and destruction that would sour the delicate sensibilities of wide-eyed cadets.

Phaser rifles that burn victims alive in slow writhing agony that make Klingon phasers look like children’s toys. Daggers laced with neurotoxins that render victims paralyzed, but fully conscious as they helplessly lie dying. Poisons that spread through the atmosphere, inducing complete cellular lysis in a matter of minutes.

Like an extension of Lorca’s menagerie, Michael wonders if in her world Philippa’s was any worse, before she shudders at the recollection of the device she’d used in her throne room against her council, and Michael forces herself to move on.

She walks down a poorly lit alley, and to the side, she sees someone lying supine in a heap of filth on the floor, the stink of excrement lining the air, and whether sleeping or dead, Michael feels no need to find out. A quiet scuffle further down the road, barely visible to her eyes, ends with several unmoving humanoid-shaped lumps slouching to the ground, as the victors slip back and away into the shadows.

The howling and shouting of industrious gamblers are almost loud enough to drown out the growls and whimpers of modified targs fighting in a makeshift ring as Michael passes by, recoiling when a waving arm forcefully pushes her away, and she stumbles into a wall.

She looks up toward the sky, shoulders heavy, drawing in a deep breath instinctively before flinching as her lungs feel as though they’re filling with smoke and cinder. From here, the sky seems bleary and dull and sallow, and Michael sees not a single constellation, not a single star, and her gut sinks at the feeling of being disconnected from the rest of the universe, from the life and people she’s come to know, feeling utterly and bitterly alone.

Resting for a moment, maybe longer, as she leans over a railing at some backend of an alley, at the edge of the embassy and away from wandering eyes, Michael lets her thoughts stray, a luxury she rarely affords herself. Before her lies a steep valley, a blackened void in the dark of night, within which the embassy was built, a once sacred land of the sect that worshipped _Molor_ , their untouched shrines that lie buried beneath molten rock, lost and forgotten.

Before, when she had tracked Philippa beneath the surface, standing over the chimney at the center of one of these shrines, Michael recalls the sense of grandeur as she looked around, dim light from the city above filtering down, barely illuminating the intricate stone carvings and gilded patterns etched across every surface, and she’d almost forgotten she was at war with those responsible for this architectural and artistic wonder.

Though the light was scarce, the atmosphere had been stained rich with a history, a hush of ancient faith, of dedication and craft. She reached out to touch the hallowed reliefs, fingertips brushing absently as they traced the flowing curves and shapes. She knew little of what the figures meant, and it pained her to think how little it is she’ll ever likely know.

But these shrines, as magnificent as they are, were meant for sacrifices, to _Molor,_ the tyrant and nemesis of _Kahless the Unforgettable._ These grand walls were varnished in centuries of blood, these statues erected for the worship of war and death and tyranny.

Not unlike the colossal beacon she had explored not too long ago at the Binary Star system, as she drifted along side it, in awe of its beauty and its workmanship, but unknowing of its true intent, its design in fathering a war.

If on that fateful day, she hadn’t gone to investigate, to touch that rendered hull just to sate her curiosity, to somehow kill the torchbearer instead of flee… _Just a flyby,_ she remembers saying _._ What would have happened?

Her hands are stained with the blood of tens of thousands, seeping through her skin and hardening her heart. They could raise a shrine in her name, her image a symbol of war, and it would look the same as those shrines which lie entombed beneath her very feet, brilliant and glorious, and condemned. How ironic would it be…

Michael’s stomach grumbles, bringing her out of her light reverie, but also offering her an idea of where to continue searching.

Sounds of sex reach her ears when Michael turns the corner, and she hardly sees in her peripheral vision a couple going at it against the back wall of a tavern, shrouded in darkness, but the grunts and groans are unmistakable.

Ignoring their sounds of lust, Michael ventures into the bar, immediately ducking her head as a bottle flies over her and shatters against the wall behind her. The boisterous laughter has Michael reaching for her phaser, until she realizes that the drunken group of Nausicaans had not purposefully targeted her with the bottle, but were rather aiming at some target on the wall in a game.

Strolling past the drunkards, cautious eyes scoping out her vicinity for any trouble, Michael guardedly makes her way toward the counter. She reaches into her pocket, pulling out a pouch full of darseks, drawing the attention of the bartender and discreetly slides it over to him. Holding out a small holoprojector, a faint and static image appears. “Have you seen this Human female?”

 

—

 

Not far from the bar is a secluded diner, an underground establishment built within one of the more surface levels of Qo’noS’ cave system, with igneous rock as walls and partitions, stalactites as lighting fixtures and stalagmites as chairs and tables. This aesthetic would be rather pleasing if not for the sickly yellow-green haze, the acrid reek of methane and the humid, stagnant heat. Michael heads farther into the diner, instinctively toward a dark corner facing the entrance.

Her pulse begins to accelerate, an achingly familiar sensation she’s become well acquainted with, one that teases her logic, her intellect, at every thought or sight of the woman she’s looking for, this Philippa-who-is-not-her-Philippa.

An irrepressible physiological response to the perpetual haunt of regret and shame and guilt, when she’s forced to remember. How it strikes at her nervous system like a deadly threat that makes her breathing shallow and pupils dilate, ready to run or to fight or maybe some sordid mix of the two, Michael can’t be sure.

But now, as she tries to analyze it, laced into this perplexing web of emotions, there’s also an excitement there, an anticipation of seeing a face she knows so well? Or is it actually a dread, a deadening fear of a woman so lethal, and so unknown?

 _Why not join me?_ Or is it… temptation?

It puzzles her to no end that she can’t easily explain what happens to her mind or to her body, or explicate with any certainty even the choices that she makes when this Philippa is involved.

She continues forward, her steps calculated and slow, but her head feels heavy on shoulders and her periphery grows blurred. And for an instant, Michael thinks she can almost feel the press of a phaser to her chest, her own hand pulling the cold steel closer, harder against the skin that hides her beating heart, until she blinks and the feeling is gone.

A shadowy figure sitting in this corner watches her curiously, the reflective glint in her eyes barely visible as Michael moves closer. A quiet, nettled voice stops her in her tracks, her breath held still like a rodent frozen by the sight of a sehlat. “Can I not have my first meal as a free woman in peace?” Philippa, knife and fork in hand, gestures disapprovingly at the plate in front of her, adding, “Not that I might actually consider this a meal.”

Michael takes a seat at the table across from Philippa, close enough now to see her face in the dim light, the sharp contours of her features brought to contrast by shadow and makeup, and framed by her straight, dark hair. For a moment longer, Michael stares, rehearsing in her mind words she’d already chosen to say. “I need your help.”

“Ask your Federation.” Taking another bite of her Feresan vilm steak, Philippa looks to Michael, bemused by the utter seriousness in her expression. She is curious though, why Michael is sitting before her now, ruining her already ruined meal. “You’re a hero now, aren’t you? I’m sure they would eagerly get on their knees to help you.”

Breaking eye contact, Michael reaches for the standard issue Starfleet communicator in her pocket, placing it cautiously on the table and eyeing it with mild reverence as her chest grows tight. “This is stolen property now.”

Philippa raises her brow, pausing in the middle of cutting her steak. “So you defected.” She reaches for the bottle of bloodwine beside her plate before bringing it to her lips. “They’ll be looking for you then.”

“They will,” Michael confirms with what almost sounds like part remorse and part annoyance. She continues, voice growing soft, “But they won’t try for long. Not more than a day at most. Returning to Earth is their priority now. That, and if the bomb goes off… they'll leave soon."

Swallowing, the bloodwine runs down her throat like molten ore, burning and blistering, so Philippa hisses low and harsh, “Then what do you need me for? You think you’re so clever, so be clever. Play your little games and hide.”

Michael tries to rationalize, to think of the reason strong enough to have made her go looking for Philippa in the first place. She needs not only to convince the woman sitting before her, but herself as well. “I… we would have a better chance out here… together.”

Laughing, Philippa finishes off her steak, pushing her plate aside and leaning back against her seat. “Thanks to your gracious Federation, I’m a free woman, remember? I’m not running from anyone. I have nothing to hide.” And at the implication of weakness, of dependency, Philippa hastily adds, “And I can handle myself. Can’t you?”

Her jaw clenching, Michael ignores the insult and argues, “It would be less difficult if—”

“If I helped you navigate through this _uncivilized_ world? That’s the problem with you Federation types. You never get your hands dirty. You can’t see beyond the clean lines of your uniforms. You limit yourselves with all this talk of virtue that you’d let yourselves be annihilated to keep your principles intact.” Venom on her tongue, Philippa spits, “It’s pathetic.”

Michael exhales, dropping her gaze and lowering her voice. Any reluctance left within her, to dispute the accuracy of this Philippa’s assessment of the Federation simply vanishes. Michael knows she’s right. “Why do you think I left?”

Hands clasped on the table in front of her, Philippa considers Michael’s words, shifting her jaw and running her tongue across her teeth, as she weighs her options. “I suppose I can be of assistance.” Michael looks up, her eyes wide and bright and focused, until Philippa continues, her words turning coarse and scathing. “It’s more than you did for me.”

“I saved your life,” Michael maintains promptly, defensively, enunciating firmly every syllable, while keeping eye contact and never wavering.

Philippa slants her head, challenging, sweeping her arms out with palms up, to motion vaguely before her. “And what life is this?” Her voice is a growl, humming with an ire as she stares at Michael, skin running hot. “Here, I have nothing. Here, I’m _dead_. A ghost, because of you.”

She slams her hands down, but the table is stone and the sound of contact is muffled and hangs in the air. She watches Michael struggle to find words, that brilliant brain of hers, so logical, so _Vulcan_ , scrambling in vain behind defiant eyes, but Philippa presses forward, impatient.

“You brought me here to this world where the humans are weak and gullible, and they tremble in fear of those who live on this trash heap of a planet that would’ve been better off as a ball of ash. This world of yours, so bright, so fragile. None of you know of the reality in which you live, and it leaves you all helpless, and lost. Any bit of trouble and your people act like confused children, ripe as fruit for your enemies to pick and devour. And you, of all people—”

“You said it yourself. You had no future there. So I brought you here,” Michael interrupts, a stab of resolution to her tone, of hope, as she avoids having to hear what Philippa would say of her. She leans forward against her forearms on the table, holding her ground. “So you can start over.”

A disparaging huff escapes her lips, at the sheer absurdity at the thought of once living the life of an emperor and now scrounging amongst the lowest dregs of the galaxy, and Philippa bemusedly repeats, “ _So I can start over._ ” Leaning back farther, into the dark of her corner, Philippa says plainly, “I told you, there are no second chances.”

Michael shakes her head. “You’re wrong. I’m living proof that second chances can happen. And you are too.”

“I wouldn’t have taken a _Vulcan_ for being so sentimental.” Philippa studies Michael closely. “You’re serious about this... ”

Her eyes are promising, like ever the optimist, like ever the one with a plan, and Philippa finds it almost difficult to disbelieve her when Michael quietly affirms, “ _Yes_.” The sincerity in her voice is a rarity in her world, and Philippa is drawn to it like the gleam of gold. “You can have a future here, in this universe. If you choose.”

Philippa rises from her seat, grabbing the bottle of bloodwine as she looks down at Michael. “With you?”

“If your offer from before still stands,” Michael starts, assurance building in her voice, as she makes sure to firmly state, and not ask. “I will join you.”

“Was this your plan all along, when you tackled me into your universe? To see me _start over_ ?” Michael begins moving from her seat, but a forceful hand at her shoulder pushes her down, keeping her seated and staring up. “Become more like _her_?”

Dismayed by the accusation, Michael remains quiet, gritting her teeth. Her mind swims at the prospect of these charges, that in her actions to bring Philippa to this world, she had on some level of subconsciousness intended to reform her, reconstruct her in the image of someone else she once knew.

Had she not brought her here in a panic? For fear of losing that familiar face a second time? Or was there something beyond that? An underlying potential her Vulcan instincts had uncovered, desperate to explore? Or was it her Human side, seeing and longing for something that wasn’t there? _You really are nothing like my Georgiou…_

Her eyes glaze over, and Michael is barely aware of Philippa moving around to stand behind her when she barely manages to utter a depleted, “I…”

Philippa, now laughing in earnest, moves her hand from Michael’s shoulder and slyly runs her fingers up her neck and under her chin, tilting her head up and back so their eyes meet in an awkward balance, fingertips tapping lightly at her throat.

Blinking, gaze faltering, but inevitably drawn to the luring, dark eyes above her, Michael swallows hard and Philippa lets out another chuckle as she brings the bottle of bloodwine to her lips. “ _I do like you_ ,” she repeats. Philippa releases her chin and turns toward the exit, the faint lighting masking the creeping flush spreading across Michael’s face. “Follow me.”

 

—

**Author's Note:**

> I hope y'all enjoy this. Let me know what you think, and if I should continue. Thanks!


End file.
